


Disenchanted

by xSeshatx



Series: Peter Parker: Future Hearts [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Gen, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Sick Peter, Sick Peter Parker, Whump, oh boy this was a hard one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 11:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21118298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xSeshatx/pseuds/xSeshatx
Summary: Peter was attacked, and there's a good chance he won't pull through





	Disenchanted

**Author's Note:**

> Disenchanted - My Chemical Romance

**I’m just going to pretend I know sciencey things, so for the purpose of this story, let’s pretend that I am 100% accurate in things I know very little about. Please don’t tell me in the comments where I went wrong because I sincerely don’t care lol **

“Dude, you look horrible.”

Even though Ned only said it once, the words echoed through his head on an endless loop and it took him a few moments to find his friend. All day long, it felt as if he was spinning twice as fast as the rest of the world, yet he was moving far too slow to keep up. It was only lunchtime, too, which meant he was so far from nighttime that it actually hurt him to think about. He hadn’t felt that horrible since the spider bite… This wasn’t good. Something had happened, but he could not remember what. He plopped onto the chair once he miraculously made it to his, Ned’s, and MJ’s lunch table. “I think s’methin’s wrong,” he slurred, grateful MJ hadn’t arrived yet to watch his pitiful display.

Ned’s evident worry only intensified and now he looked straight-up concerned. “Let me help you to the nurse, okay?” he asked, grabbing his arms and moving to force him to his feet. He said it slowly as if expecting an argument of ‘I don’t need help’, but none came.

“Call my dad,” Peter somehow forced out, his vision blackening as he was suddenly right back on his feet. His head swam worse than before, angry at him for only sitting for a few seconds. “Spider problem. No nurse.”

Their shared atmosphere tensed, and Ned’s grip tightened because if it was a Spider-Man problem, it had to be more serious than just the flu (Could Peter even get the flu? Ned felt like he couldn’t). Typical, Peter wouldn’t have his shooters on. Tony would have known something was wrong had he been wearing them, but instead, Peter was suffering and Tony had no idea. “Bathroom okay?” he asked, and Peter’s head dipped once in a nod. They ignored the stares directed their way, or, at least, Ned did. Peter was too oblivious. They made it to the bathroom and Ned locked the door behind them after depositing Peter on the floor and making sure nobody else was around. He found Tony’s number after he pulled his phone out (sometimes, it would hit him that he had Tony’s number just in his phone, available to him at all times, but this wasn’t the time to fanboy), urging the man silently to answer because he didn’t know how to handle a sick superhero who only looked worse each passing minute and could probably pass as being drunk had anyone else been around.

Peter was dripping in sweat, burning up, and his face was gray. When his eyes were open, he looked so out of it that Ned was surprised Peter had enough sense to say even those few words to him before. He was shaking so badly that he would probably be next-to-useless doing literally anything besides sitting there. Ned had watched Peter deteriorate through the day. When he first saw him in the hallway, he told Peter to go home and take a day off from everything. Unsurprisingly, that idea was shut down. By the time first period started, Peter looked twice as bad. Now, he looked like a corpse. At first, it looked like Peter just caught a cold or the flu. This was bad.

“The nerve of some people,” Tony said as his own way of answering. “Calling me in school? Your parents would be ashamed.” Ned wouldn’t say that the two of them were on a first-name basis, so to say (Tony didn’t call him Mr. Leeds or anything, but Ned always said ‘Mr. Stark’ when they were talking), but Ned had been over to visit enough for him not to freak out anytime Tony was nearby or within earshot.

“Mr. Stark? It’s Ned,” he said, and instead of waiting for Tony to ask questions, he explained what was happening. “Peter’s really sick right now. He said it’s an, um, it’s a spider problem. He wouldn’t let me take him to the nurse.”

“Sick as in hurt or sick as in sick?”

The fact that Tony had to have Ned specify should have surprised him, but he knew Peter liked to downplay his injuries. ‘I’m just feeling a little under the weather,’ could also mean, ‘I just got stabbed’ which was sometimes annoying. “I think he’s sick. It’s bad, though. He’s burning up and can’t walk by himself.”

Peter’s voice sounded raspy when he spoke. “I got…someone…I can’t ‘member what happened.”

“He said he doesn’t remember what happened, so maybe he got hurt? I don’t know. You’re the one who knows most about the other side of him…” The question was there even if he didn’t vocalize it. ‘Can you help him?’ was on the tip of his tongue, but Tony beat him to it.

“Let me talk to him.”

“Pete? Are you able to talk to him?” Ned asked. Peter’s eyes watered and he opened his mouth, but then he gasped and shook his head. He still moved forward and put the phone against Peter’s ear.

“Dad?” Peter said, reaching to grab the phone before Ned pushed his hand away. He didn’t seem strong enough to hold the phone.

“Hey, kid. What’s going on?”

“Help?”

Ouch. “I will. Okay? I will. Give the phone back to Ned.” Peter shrugged his shoulder to push Ned’s hand away and Ned put the phone back to his own here. “Stay where you are and keep everybody from seeing him. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Keep him awake.”

Only seconds after Tony hung up, Peter crawled forward to a stall and threw up in the toilet. He had been waiting for the phone call to end because he didn’t need Tony hearing that. He didn’t need to worry him more. Ned rushed after him, keeping a hand on his back. They had been best friends for so long that they had shared the flu together a time or two, so seeing the other throw up wasn’t a big deal anymore. Except this was more than just throwing up. Well, it was _only_ throwing up. But it was serious. It was very serious. If Ned had tried to deceive himself into seeing color in Peter’s skin before, there was absolutely no way he could fool himself now. After Peter finally stopped throwing up, he started swaying and probably would have ended face-first into either the toilet bowl or the floor if Ned hadn’t been there to catch him. Ned gave himself props for not panicking when Peter’s eyes closed. “Hey, Pete, buddy, I’m gonna need you to stay awake, okay, because I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, and I could really use your guidance here. Besides, you don’t want to leave me alone with Tony, do you? I’ll end up making a fool out of us both.”

To Peter’s credit, he let out the weakest laugh, but then he was all-serious again because he wasn’t too sure what was going on. He knew bits and pieces of the situation. He had woken up fine that morning, was extremely sick at school, and Ned took him to the bathroom at lunch. Details of the day left him except for how awful he felt. He knew something had happened, but he couldn’t remember what, where, or when. It was an awful feeling, knowing that the memory he needed was right there, just a hair away from where his brain could actually pick it up. Images swarmed his vision. Ned was sitting in front of him, talking to him, and he could hear the words, but it was all on repeat and sounded so far away. His body felt as if he had turned to stone. Everything was so heavy. Breathing took up most of his conscious thoughts, leaving little room for much else, but he still tried to make sense of things.

“Pete – the more you fall asleep, the more I’m going to annoy you. _Please_, Peter, stop falling asleep.”

Falling asleep had always been a bad thing when he was hurt or sick. He knew to avoid falling asleep. He hadn’t been aware of the fact that he wasn’t conscious that whole time. “Okay,” he said, part of his mind aware enough that he should feel guilty for how little words he was saying to him. “Ned. Mask?”

“You want your mask?” Ned asked. He dug around Peter’s bag for the mask and slid it on Peter’s face.

The suit automatically filtered the light, sound, and smell for Peter, and everything became a little more understandable. He took a few seconds just to breathe in what felt like cleaner air as he worked up the energy to speak. “Karen. Mission report. Send to dad?”

“Karen,” Ned said suddenly, “can you tell me what happened to Peter? We need to know what’s going on.”

“Peter has been injected with an unknown substance. I can’t find any record of it anywhere else. It looks to have been generated to attack mutant cells in humans. I am unable to tell if it is successful or not. There was only a small amount of the substance on the suit for me to analyze.”

“Holy shit. Was he out as Spider-Man, or should I be worried that someone is going to storm through these doors looking for him?”

“He was in his suit. His identity has not been compromised. Though, I fear Iron Man’s arrival to the school to pick up a sick student on the same day as the attack on Spider-Man may bring unwanted attention.”

That was enough for him. He grabbed his phone again and quickly redialed Tony’s number. Karen had a point. If Tony showed up, in his suit or not, then that would grab people’s attention. People knew that Peter was Tony’s adopted kid. It was common knowledge among most of the population it seemed because Tony was _that_ big of a name. Whoever was smart enough to develop a serum to attack mutant cells in a body and who was powerful enough to actually administer it to Spider-Man (and Ned knew Peter. Peter was amazing at dodging hits in a fight) would definitely notice a coincidence. Tony hurriedly picking up his sick kid after Spider-Man got injected with something that would hurt him? If Tony wasn’t Iron Man, it would seem like a coincidence. But Spider-Man came around only a couple years before Peter was adopted by Tony, so the seed might have already been implanted in some people. 

“You can’t let anybody see you. Peter was attacked as Spider-Man. It’ll be too much of a coincidence if you suddenly show up for a sick kid when you’ve never done so before,” Ned said as soon as he heard the ringing stop.

“I’m way ahead of you,” Tony said. Because of course Tony had Peter’s safety in mind and Ned didn’t have to bother with the heads up. “I’m having Pepper come sign him out. She’s much subtler than I am. She could blend right in without anybody noticing it’s her. I mean, have you seen Pepper dressed down in jeans and wearing sunglasses? She could almost be a different person.” Tony did not sound as worried as Ned knew he was. “You’re gonna have to bring him to the front when I tell you to. Make sure you avoid as many people as possible. How’s he doing?”

Truthfully, Ned forgot to make sure Peter stayed awake. He reached up to pull the mask off and, luckily, Peter’s eyes were still open, blinking tiredly. “Hey, Petey, how you feeling?” he asked, but Peter only gave a single shake of his head. A barely shake of the head, but Ned could make it out. “He’s getting worse, but he’s awake.”

It was instinct alone that caused Peter to lean over to throw up in the toilet instead of throwing up all over himself, Ned, and the floor. It felt as if his body was melting from the inside and this was the only way to get rid of the excess. He held himself over the toilet with one hand and the other wrapped around his cramping stomach as if that would stop the pain. When he was done, before he could fall, there was a hand on his shoulder keeping him upright, and then he was on his feet and being led somewhere.

The second Tony gave Ned the go-ahead, he lifted Peter up to his feet and moved as quickly as possible to get to the front of the school. Lunch had ended a few minutes prior, thankfully, so he avoided the worst of the people. He barely remembered to put the mask away before leaving the safety and privacy of the bathroom in his hurry. Peter mumbled some words to him during their escape, but it sounded too much like nonsense. At the front of the school, he saw Pepper Potts standing in the office. Having ditched the very formal CEO attire she always sported, she was dressed down in some casual jeans and a t-shirt with her hair in a messy bun. And the sunglasses that Tony mentioned were on her face. It was still so-obviously Pepper to someone who knew Pepper personally, but Ned had to admit that she blended right in with the other moms of Midtown.

“I’ve signed him out, but I think you’ll be in a bit of trouble if you leave, too,” she said, replacing him on the side of Peter. “We’ll call you as soon as we know anything, okay? You’ve done so much to help him today, thank you.” Ned wordlessly handed over Peter’s bookbag. “Thanks,” Pepper said again, rushing out of the school while supporting a sixteen-year-old superhero who weighed so much more than he looked, yet she didn’t look like she was struggling at all.

“Mom?” Peter slurred, trying to straighten himself out to walk unassisted once it dawned on him who had been speaking.

“Don’t even try to act like this isn’t as serious as it is because it’s me and not Ned,” she chastised. The fact that he called her mom didn’t go unnoticed. She opened the door for him and helped him in before getting in the driver’s seat. Peter didn’t have enough brain power to wonder where Happy was.

“Hey, Underoos,” Tony greeted in a whisper, though he somehow still managed to sound casual as if he wasn’t worried in the slightest. “When we get a little further away from the school, you and I are gonna fly upstate.”

“Dad? I don’t feel so good.”

“I know you don’t, bud. You’re not looking so hot, either. What’s the last thing you remember before feeling sick?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. “We’ll work through it. Do you remember breakfast?”

Did he? It wasn’t at the front of his mind, but he knew he ate. Nobody really let him leave for school if he didn’t have breakfast. The more he thought about it, the less certain he was that he would be able to remember what he ate, but he also realized a detail that would probably turn out to be important. “I didn’t have a ride to school,” he said. He didn’t remember eating, but he remembered swinging to school. Happy had called him, complaining about being stuck in traffic. He was supposed to go get Tony to take him to school.

“I heard. Who took you?”

“I don’t think anybody did.”

“You swung to school?”

“I think so.”

There was a pause as Tony held back his frustration. Peter was always supposed to have a ride to school. He was told not to swing to school because there would always be somebody around to take him, whether that meant Happy was coming by, Pepper had already been awake for the day, or he found another Avenger to bring him, but there was always a way to get to school without using Spider-Man. “Okay. We can discuss that later. How’s that sound?”

“Yell at me later.”

“I won’t yell at you,” Tony said. The frustration died immediately. Peter didn’t make a habit of doing things he wasn’t supposed to, so Tony never really had reason to get frustrated. Because of that, Tony didn’t realize just how big of an effect Peter had on him. Peter sounded _sad_ when he said, ‘Yell at me later,’ and his sadness made Tony sad which only got rid of the frustration. “Did you just swing to school, or did you go out on patrol?”

Peter cast his mind back to that morning as much as he could (and that wasn’t a lot). So, breakfast was a lost memory. Swinging to school wasn’t, but he only had brief pictures pop into his head. He could see himself as Spider-Man jumping off of the Avengers Tower and rushing towards the ground, and then time jumped ahead where he was only a few blocks away from school. There were a quite a few minutes missing in his mind. “I don’t know what I did. I don’t know why I’d go on patrol.”

“I don’t know either, but if this is a Spider-Man issue, then you must have.”

“I’m sorry if I did.” Peter took a very deep breath, letting his eyes shut. “No more talking?”

“Does it hurt to talk?” Tony asked, and Peter nodded. “Can you show me where?” Peter shook his head ‘no’ at that. “You don’t know where it hurts?”

“I think everything hurts,” Pepper said from the front seat. Peter nodded at that. “I think we’re far enough away if you want me to pull over.”

“Why does Bruce have to be upstate today of all days?” Tony complained. The anxious energy was filling his entire body, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to help his kid, and he couldn’t do that when freaking out. Pepper pulled over so Tony could get out of the car. He activated his suit and reached in to grab Peter, flying away as soon as the door was shut in the hopes that he was moving too fast for anybody to really see the limp body in his arms.

“Karen has sent me footage from Peter’s suit. Do you want me to play it for you?” Friday asked only moments later since he was no longer talking to Peter.

“Play it,” Tony said.

The video and audio started rolling. Tony could hear Peter humming a song to himself as he swung, starting from the top of Avengers Tower. After watching so many videos of Spider-Man (from both first person POV through Karen’s eyes or from clips on YouTube and the news), Tony was able to tell the difference between Peter swinging for a purpose and Peter lazy swinging. His lazy swinging including more drawn out swings; he would go higher in the air and fall lower to the ground, not really working on moving quickly because there was no rush. That confirmed that Peter wasn’t in his suit to go on patrol, but things could change. And they did.

Halfway through the song, Peter abruptly cut himself off, saying, “What the…?” His heartrate popped up on the screen. Karen began showing Peter his vitals when his heart was beating too fast for her liking. That was usually caused because of his spider-sense. Which meant that Peter’s spider-sense had started going haywire. A reaction like that would normally get sent straight to Tony, but he had no alert that morning from Peter or his suit. The kid perched on the top of a building, posed ready to move should he need to. “Karen, could you scan the area? I don’t like this.”

“What is it, Peter?” Karen asked. A radar popped up on the screen as she did what was asked of her. “What is your spider-sense telling you?”

“It isn’t telling me anything,” Peter said, and he sounded frustrated and scared. Tony understood why. Peter’s spider-sense was usually more than a bad feeling. It would tell him how and when to react. Even if he didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, it would almost push him in the way he needed to go to avoid trouble. The fact that he was just given a feeling of _something_ would stress Tony out, too. That would be like if Friday told him there was incoming danger and then ignoring him when he asked her where it was coming from. “I don’t like this, Karen.”

“I’m not picking anything up in the area, and there have been no 911 calls anywhere within a ten-block radius,” Karen said. The scan she had up for Peter to see confirmed the lack of activity.

“The _one_ day I decide not to bother anybody just to drive me to school,” Peter complained. “Okay. Okay, so. Yeah. I’m uncomfortable.”

“Do you want me to contact Tony for you?”

There was silence for a second. Peter had been considering it. “No, it’s okay. I’m gonna go home.”

“Is it that bad?” Karen asked.

“Something isn’t right. If I go to school, I’m only going to end up freaking out. I can’t do that. I think I’d rather just wake dad up now and stay at home.”

Tony’s heart melted at hearing Peter call him ‘dad’ when nobody else was around to hear it. “Sounds like you’re just trying to skip out on school,” Karen said, her voice mocking him in a joke right after Peter turned around and started swinging back the way he came, this time in a hurry.

“I know you’re just trying to mess around and make me feel better, but…” His voice trailed off and there was another spike in his heartrate. Thankfully, his spider-sense seemed to be working better then because this time he dropped to the ground. Tony barely saw _something_ fly on the screen which meant that Peter definitely saw it, but he also definitely felt it first. He landed on the roof of some building and switched to a fighting position. It was almost as if Tony was the one in this battle. Peter dodged and weaved without saying a single word which told Tony _exactly_ how scared Peter was, and all Tony wanted to do was go save him.

“I have been tracking you for _weeks_, Spider-Man,” this new villain who had yet to make a full on-screen appearance said. “You could at least put up a better fight than this.”

“Who are you?” Peter asked, skipping over his tradition of annoying the villains to death with his quips.

“It doesn’t matter.” The voice was closer now and Peter jumped in shock, his head whipping around until he was face to face with somebody. It was a man wearing a masquerade mask and a suit. Like, a three-piece expensive suit to wear to important events or a ball or _something_ that wasn’t attacking a superhero. He moved more graciously than Natasha could even dream of and quicker than her, too, yet with more precision than even Hawkeye could manage. Tony couldn’t see it happen through the eyes of Peter, but the gasp Peter gave confirmed that this man just hit him. Somewhere. And then it was over. His heartrate slowed down, he fell to the ground, and the man vanished.

Moments later, Peter groaned and sat up. “What just happened?” he asked, though he didn’t sound like he was genuinely expecting an answer. “I gotta…” He paused. “I forget what I have to do.” Tony didn’t even need to use his brain to deduce that Peter had been injected with something. That something seemed to be quick-working, too. “Shoot, school.”

“Peter, you should contact Tony,” Karen said. “If you don’t, I will have to.”

“No, it’s okay,” Peter said. “I’m not even going to be late. Even if I am late, I don’t think dad’ll actually care. Not enough for you to report it to him, at least.”

“What are you talking about, Peter? He needs to know about the attack.”

“I gotta get to school. I’m almost there. Gotta change out of my suit…” Peter changed his direction mid-swing to head towards an alley. Tony noticed the increase in heartrate again, but Karen didn’t say anything. After a moment, the feed ended. Peter had taken his mask off.

Now that the video was over, Tony realized how close he was to the compound. He also noticed that he never got a warning from Karen. No heads-up. No report of injury. “Friday, bring Karen in.” He only paused for a second. “Karen, why didn’t you report to me the attack? You were planning on it, and then you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. It appears that I malfunctioned. I _did_ send out a signal to you, but if you never received it, then there must be an error in my system. I found traces of some unknown substance intended to target mutant cells. If I had to guess, I would say it’s working.”

Tony was willing to bet that the person who hurt Peter also jammed Karen’s systems. "Friday, call Bruce.” When Tony got off of the phone with Ned the first time, he called ahead to warn Bruce that they were coming. Now that he had more information, this became more than an injured or sick Peter; Peter was most definitely drugged.

“How’s Peter?” Bruce asked, skipping greetings. There was no time for greetings.

During the duration of the video, Tony kept jostling Peter to make sure he was still awake. He got a few groans, but Peter did open his eyes every time. “Bad. He’s been drugged up with something that attacks mutant cells according to his AI. I’m thirty seconds out.”

Twenty-six seconds later, Tony landed. His suit peeled away around him as he ran to Bruce and the waiting-stretcher. The two of them then pushed the stretcher on their way to the med-bay. “His heart is beating way too fast,” Bruce commented, only having his fingers on Peter’s neck for a handful of seconds. Tony reached over to feel and noticed it, too. It was fast even for superhumans.

The next twenty minutes were some of the worst minutes in Tony’s life. He had to watch Peter get hooked up to all these different machines and stuck with all these different needles. Bruce had to call for an extra set of hands to help _hold Peter down_ because the amount of pain Peter was in was beyond bearable. It was Bucky who came down, and the look of genuine shock on his face was almost enough to distract Tony from his own inner pain. When Bruce called for help, he said, “I need Bucky, Steve, or a whole bunch of people.” That was it. He needed Bucky. Or Steve. Or a collection of others. He didn’t say why, and nobody asked.

“What the hell happened?” Bucky asked.

“Hold him down,” Bruce instructed. They needed an extra set of hands because Tony didn’t have it in him to use his suit to hold his kid down just to inflict more pain to him. When Bucky complied, Bruce gave a brief explanation. “He’s been drugged with something that is killing his mutant cells. Everything I do is hurting him, and I can’t work if he keeps thrashing.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispered brokenly. His tears were falling faster than Tony’s. “I’m trying not to move.”

Tony put his hand on top of Peter’s head and lowered his forehead to touch Peter’s. “You’re doing great, kiddo.”

“It hurts so much.”

Everybody knew Peter had a high pain tolerance. The Avengers all needed to have high pain tolerances if they were going to fight people and _things_ all the time. Peter, though, had a noteworthy pain tolerance, and that was because of his age and the few years of experience he had in comparison to most of the others. Not to mention Peter usually healed remarkably fast. The fact that the pain was only increasing was as worrisome as the pain itself.

“I know. Bruce is doing everything he can to take that pain away.”

“Did you ever finish your English essay?” Bucky asked, causing Tony to look up at him. “I promised him I’d sneak him into Dave and Buster’s when he finished,” he explained.

“Yesterday,” Peter answered.

“What was it about?” Tony asked, understanding what Bucky was trying to do. Distract Peter as Bruce worked. Bruce had yet to be successful in drawing blood, but now it looked possible.

“I had to pick a song and a poem, and then write about how they related to me and my life, and then write a fictional memoir about my life.”

Tony remembered Peter complaining about the silliness of that assignment a few weeks prior. It was easy, Peter had said, but it was too open-ended. He said it was too much pressure, and Tony could see how. It was personal so it shouldn’t have carried so much pressure, but it did because of the creative writing portion of it. “Oh yeah? How long did it have to be?”

“Four pages.”

“What song did you end up picking? I know you had a few in mind,” Bucky pressed. Seeing as how Bruce had drawn the blood and stepped away from Peter, Bucky stopped holding him down. 

There was a very long pause and then Peter groaned. Before Tony could try to comfort him, Peter said, “It’s embarrassing.”

An embarrassed groan was much better than a groan of pain. Tony made himself laugh to keep himself from crying more. This kid was going to be the death of him. “It can’t be that bad.”

“It is. I’m gonna rewrite it before I turn it in.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not allowed to now. What song was it?” Tony pressed. “It can’t be that bad.”

“A Miley Cyrus song,” Peter mumbled.

“She could be fun,” Bruce chimed in, though he was obviously only half-listening. “His O2 Sats are very low.” He set up a facemask for Peter to help with the intake of oxygen. “Pete, how’s breathing?”

“Sucks.”

“I need you to give me more than that. Does it hurt to breathe or is it hard to breathe?”

“Both.”

“What’s going on?” Tony asked, too impatient to wait for Bruce to offer information.

“His lips are turning blue, and his blood is dark.” To prove it, Bruce held up then vile of blood he had drawn moments before. “He’s hypoxic, hypertensive, and tachycardic. His heart keeps getting faster, and his temperature is high. Peter, has the pain went down at all?” He shook his head, causing Bruce’s frown to deepen.

“What?” Tony asked.

“I gave him his pain medicine,” Bruce explained. “I need to find out what’s going on.” With that, he rushed out of there. Tony took a second, kissed the top of Peter’s head, and hurried after him. “You need to go be with your kid,” Bruce said, not looking behind him as he set up a sample of Peter’s blood to look at under a microscope in the next room.

“Don’t you think you could use another genius brain?”

“Not when it’s you,” Bruce said tiredly. “Tony, if there was somebody else here capable of understanding Peter’s biology better than me, _I _wouldn’t even be working on this. This is too personal. When it is too personal, mistakes get made. You would only be hurting Peter if you helped me right now.”

“I have to do _something_.”

“Hold your kid’s hand. That is something. Peter is crying. Comfort him. But you need to leave this room. Do you trust me?”

“Don’t turn this into that, Bruce. You know I do.”

“Then trust me to do whatever I possibly can to help Peter. You remember who helped straighten Bucky’s mind?”

Tony looked at him incredulously. “Wakanda is on the other side of the world, Bruce. What could they do? Besides, they’re more technological than us. They’re more comfortable using Vibranium, which we have none of. They would be able to help him if he was _there_ with _their_ technology.”

“Even so, Princess Shuri is smarter than you and I combined. She could help. I will call them, and she could help.”

That wasn’t what Tony wanted to hear, but that was the best he knew he would be able to get. He had no problem with the people of Wakanda. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was fascinated by their technologies, and he was elated at the brain of the teenage princess. But that was on the other side of the world. Their help would be unrealistic. There was only so much they could do on a video call. Even so, he nodded to Bruce and returned to Peter’s bedside. Bruce was the doctor, and he had work to do. He couldn’t do that with a parent hovering over his shoulder.

Peter felt horrible. His vision kept randomly turning black, but he knew he was still conscious. He wished he wasn’t. The nausea hadn’t gotten any worse which sounded like a blessing, but the stomach cramps were even worse. His mind was still all over the place with him unable to fully develop and retain thoughts or memories. The more time that passed, the more worried Peter was that his insides would somehow turn to liquid and seep through his skin. Something was going on inside of him and it was progressively getting worse. He was on death’s door. He felt it, but he wouldn’t vocalize those words. He needed to. This wasn’t just a dramatic thought fueled by pain; this was his spider-sense, trying to protect him.

He knew he was talking to people. There was some conversation happening, but he could not figure out what words were leaving his mouth. He had no idea how his brain functioned enough to come up with coherent thoughts without letting him know he had them, but he was saying things and not knowing what. He felt trapped in his brain. Like, the real him was locked away, but some small portion of him had been able to escape the mental blockage, and those two parts of him couldn’t interact at all, so both were unsure of what was going on with the other. None of that even makes sense, and that’s why it made perfect sense.

No matter what, though, it was a little easier to focus now that he was with family.

Tony grabbed Peter’s hand, and Peter looked over at him with tired eyes. “I don’t want to be awake,” he whispered. “Is there something you can do?”

“Your pain medicine isn’t working. It would be dangerous to try giving you different medicines until we know for sure what we’re dealing with,” Tony explained, trying not to let it show how much Peter’s request hurt him. “Bruce is going to work with other people and try to figure this out.”

“What do we know so far?” Bucky asked.

“Bruce is out of his element. He’s calling someone for help.”

If Bucky looked scared before, he looked downright terrified now. Tony was sure his own face matched. “It’s that bad?” he asked, though only mouthing the words so Peter didn’t know what he was saying. Tony nodded solemnly. It was that bad.

“Hurts so bad.”

“What kind of pain? Burning, stabbing…?”

“So much pain. All of it. Spider-sense.”

Both Bucky and Tony’s hearts dropped into their stomachs. “What’s it saying?” Tony asked.

“Says I’m not doing okay. Warning me.”

Bucky seemed to catch Peter’s meaning before Tony did, and he excused himself from the room to go to Bruce. “Banner.”

“What is it?” Bruce asked, not looking up from the microscope as he scribbled words on a sheet of paper beside him. “Did Spider-Man get worse?”

That, truthfully, made Bucky freeze. Spider-Man? Not Peter? Silently, with the pen still in his hand, Bruce pointed at the ceiling. He was on the phone with somebody who did not know Peter and Spider-Man were one and the same. “I think he’s dying.”

‘Dying’ seemed to be enough for Bruce to raise his eyes and turn to face Bucky. “Why?”

“His spider-sense. He says it’s warning him.”

Before Bruce could respond, a machine at the other end of the room beeped, and Bruce jogged over to it. “I was able to isolate the unknown substance from his blood, but I still can’t tell what it is. It’s something I’ve never seen before. I’m sending it your way.” Bruce pulled up a screen seemingly out of thin air (which never made sense to Bucky, but nobody else questioned it, so it was some advanced technology), typed a few things in, and waited.

“Nor have I, Doctor Banner,” the voice said from the ceiling that Bucky immediately recognized to be Shuri’s. “Also, hello Sergeant Barnes. I’m sorry that we cannot catch up right at this moment.”

“Understood,” Bucky said. “Please just help us save Spider-Man.”

“Doctor, correct me if I’m wrong, but this substance seems to resemble heroin.”

“I was thinking it looked like U-47700. Traces of fentanyl…” A pause, and then… “Oh no. Do you think that this is a combination of multiple already dangerous drugs?”

“He’s not exactly euphoric,” Bucky chimed in.

“Nor is he experiencing all the usual symptoms of a heroin overdose, but I could very clearly see the substance. But there is something in here that I’ve never seen before. Perhaps that is what is attacking Spider-Man’s inhuman cells.”

“We need to isolate _that_ specific drug and work on creating something to counteract it,” Bruce said, but he sounded frustrated. It was probably easier said than done.

It was time for Bucky to leave. If the medical talk was picking up, all he would do would be lost. He walked back to where Tony and Peter were and was surprised to see Wanda standing where Bucky had been, holding Peter’s hand tightly. “She just showed up,” Tony said with a shrug at the look on Bucky’s face. “Bruce say anything?”

“They think it’s a combination of some drugs. They mentioned heroin, fentanyl, and U-4…700, or something like that.” As Bucky spoke, Tony closed his eyes and held Peter’s other hand up to his face. Tony knew how bad the situation was. He probably understood that more than Bucky did. Tony was too smart not to understand. “They’re working on isolating whatever is attacking his mutant cells so they can create an antidote. Is he awake?”

“Painfully so,” Peter rasped. Bucky walked closer and looked down to examine him. His eyes seem to have sunken into his face. Even his hair seemed to have lost color. The brightness of his eyes had dimmed so dark that they looked black. The mask on his face made him look even sicker even though it was there to help him breathe. If he looked closely enough, Bucky could even see the veins in Peter’s face popping out more than usual.

It seemed as if Tony had enough because at that, he lowered the arm on one side of the stretcher Peter was on, helped Peter scoot over, and he climbed on. One of his arms went around Peter’s shoulders while the other wrapped around his stomach. Once again, Peter was crying, though this time it seemed less of pain-induced tears and more of fear and sadness. Wanda winced. “I am sorry, Peter,” she said. “I am trying to remain out of your head.”

“You’re trying your best,” Bucky said. “That’s all anybody can expect.”

The door flew open and someone came running in. Everybody tensed, ready to fight, but relaxed when they saw Steve. “Pepper just called,” he said, explaining how he knew to meet them there. “She was asking for an update.”

“There really isn’t one yet,” Bucky said, speaking before Tony could. He shouldn’t have to talk about the situation. He should just lay with his kid. “Bruce is trying his best.”

“What happened? Pepper wasn’t even sure, but she was scared.” Bucky gave him the run-down. The best he could, at least. There was a lot going on that he wasn’t completely clear on, either. “He awake?” Steve asked after taking in the information. He leaned over Tony to see for himself and saw Peter’s eyes opened. “What do we know about the attacker?”

“I have video footage of the attack,” Friday said throughout the room. “I could play it for you. We don’t have a clear picture of the attacker’s face, but we have a voice and partial facial features. I have a scan running as we speak to find a match. So far, only minorly partial matches have been found. There have been no matches that I believe match up to Peter’s attacker.”

“Maybe we should do this somewhere else,” Wanda said quietly. “We can gather everybody and go over this together away from here so that Peter has a better chance of resting.”

“Bucky, can you stay?” Tony asked as everybody moved to leave. At Bucky’s hesitation, he elaborated. “You know Peter sticks to you.”

So, Bucky stayed. Wanda and Steve called the rest of the Avengers to get together in an emergency meeting. Clint was the last Avenger to walk into the room, though everybody else was still expecting Bucky, Tony, and possibly Peter. He raised an eyebrow, much like the rest did, when he saw Pepper walk in anxiously. One, because she didn’t belong in that meeting, and two, because she never looked anxious. His stomach dropped, as did everybody’s. “Tony or Peter?” he asked.

“Peter,” she said. “He was attacked this morning. As Spider-Man.”

“Bucky, Bruce, and Tony are sitting this one out,” Steve picked up. “The kid was drugged. It isn’t looking good, but there’s nothing we can do about that right now. We need to find who did this.”

“What do we have to go off of?” Natasha asked, standing up from the couch with her arms crossed, switching nicely into Black Widow mode.

“A video. Friday, play it back for us.”

Everybody watched the video nervously. When the attack started, Pepper bit her lip but did nothing else to show her fear and sadness. Once the video was done playing, she went down to join Tony and Bucky in caring for Peter. All she was there for was to see the video so she had an understanding of what happened in the best way she could before she moved to comfort. She sat beside the bed and held Peter’s hand as he and Bucky talked about some of the movies Bucky had watched off of Peter’s list. Tony listened on quietly, deciding he’d rather just hold Peter instead, and Pepper stayed quiet, too.

“That guy said he has been tracking Spider-Man for weeks,” Sam noted as the video came to an end. “Has Peter said nothing?”

“I don’t think Peter knew,” Clint said. He went to the screen and went backwards in the video until he got to the time Peter’s sense went off for the first time, and he played that small portion of the clip again before he stopped it. “See? He was surprised. It caught him off guard. He didn’t know.”

“He also points out that on the one day he didn’t get a ride,” Wanda continued. “This guy was able to work about Petey’s special sense.”

“We do not have a lot of information to go off of,” Vision said. Always the realist which sometimes came off as a pessimist.

“This person _bypassed_ Peter’s spider sense.” Clint sounded frustrated. He had _just_ been talking to Peter about not being able to rely on his spider sense all of the time, but he didn’t think that it would turn into being a problem. They all trusted his sense. “How did he manage to do that? Wouldn’t that mean he’d have to have some sort of understanding of the sense?”

“Let’s watch the fight again,” Steve said, and Clint skipped ahead to that part of the video. They all watched it silently with very trained eyes to pick up on all of the details possible, but there was very little to go off of.

Except there was something. Natasha walked up to the screen, causing Clint to willingly step aside, and zoomed the video in on a small detail that Peter seemed to have been focusing on. The guy was wearing a masquerade mask, but there was small device on it. At the corner of the mask, only an inch away from his eye and near his temple, was an antenna. It was, maybe, half an inch long. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s something,” she said. “Do you think this is how he was able to sneak past Peter’s spider sense?”

“It’s a possibility, but I don’t know how somebody could _create_ something to bypass his spider sense like that,” Rhodey said. “We’ve all seen his thing in action. It’s the best warning signal, and it is part of him. It isn’t like somebody could just make something to jam a signal.”

“This guy said he was tracking him for weeks. He probably saw the way his sense works and found a way to work around it,” Sam said.

“I just don’t understand how someone could do that,” Rhodey said.

Steve stepped in then. “We don’t need to understand it, not right now. We just need to accept the fact that somebody might have done it,” he said. “Let’s work on figuring out who this guy is. We know this guy can fight. We know he’s smart enough to hide from Spider-Man’s spider sense and manufacture something that attacks his mutant cells. We know he has some vendetta against Spider-Man and has been tracking him for weeks.”

“Friday, do we have access to police records of any kind that lead back to Peter?” Wanda asked. “Do the police include Spider-Man patrols?”

“You mean the people they arrest after Spider-Man stops them?” Clint asked, and Wanda nodded.

“The police do not usually include any mention of Spider-Man in their records,” Friday answered.

“It was a good idea,” Sam said with a sympathetic shrug.

“A very good idea,” Steve said, almost-thoughtfully. “Friday, does Spider-Man’s suit keep track of the criminals? Does Tony? That seems like something he’d do, doesn’t it?”

“Boss does go through police records and matches them up with Spider-Man patrols. He does this as a way to keep a list out for any potential dangers,” Friday answered.

“Helicopter parent,” Clint commented. “I hate the fact that it’s useful.”

“Friday, bring up a list of all the arrest records that match up with Spider-Man for the last six months,” Steve said, standing in front of the screen and waiting for everything to come up.

Before they were really able to look through the list, they heard the door open and someone enter the room. It was Loki. “We don’t have time right now,” Sam said.

“What is the problem?” Loki asked.

“Spider-Man was attacked,” Steve explained, not turning to face Loki and instead looking at the list. He hoped a name would stand out to him. Maybe one criminal’s name would just _feel _like someone who would seek revenge.

Loki stared at them for a long moment before turning and leaving the room. He went down to medical because that’s where an injured Peter would have to be. He remembered when Peter was injured during the bombing that happened not that long ago. That’s the level of injury he was anticipating. He wasn’t anticipating seeing him laying on a hospital bed with Tony. He wasn’t anticipating Pepper crying. He wasn’t anticipating Bucky holding his hand. “Is it really that bad?” he asked from the doorway.

“Hey, Loki,” Peter greeted. “Wassup?”

“Be quiet, child,” he said. “You look like you need to save your strength. Stark, what do you need me to do?”

Tony wanted to tell him to go away and leave them alone. He still didn’t trust Loki all that much at all. For some reason, though, Peter did. Peter actually took pretty well to Loki, kind of like he did with Bucky. There was no real reason for the friendship that started to develop. Not to mention the fact that Loki _did _help Peter before when there was that explosion. So, Tony sighed. “They’re up there watching the video of his attack and trying to figure out who attacked Peter. Is that something you would be able to help with?”

Here’s the thing with Loki; he was very intelligent. Granted, he had been putting his intelligence into the wrong things for a good portion of his time, but nobody could deny his brilliance. He was a tactician and a sorcerer. Even without the sorcery, he was a very smart individual. He could help, and he told Tony as much. “Peter,” he said before he left. Peter opened his eyes slowly and blinked tiredly at him. “You will be okay.” Then, he went back to return with those who were working on figuring out who hurt Peter. And why.

“You’re back,” Clint acknowledged.

“Show me the video,” he said. Everybody shared a look before Natasha shrugged and Friday started the video from the beginning. “This person moves fast. Do you guys have any ideas?”

“We’re looking up the people Spider-Man got arrested,” Vision informed him.

“Does Spider-Man often go after people like this?” Loki asked. “I was under the impression he handled less serious cases.”

“He usually goes after muggers,” Rhodey explained. “You know, people trying to rob someone else, some car thefts, store robberies.”

Loki stared at the screen, deep in thought. He listened to everybody discussing the situation. How did this person get past Peter’s sense for weeks before he finally felt it? Was this purely a Spider-Man problem or someone who knew he was Peter? When the talk jumped to medical talk, Loki turned away from the screen. “What, exactly, happened to him?”

“He was injected with something. Bruce is working on figuring out what exactly,” Wanda said. “Something is attacking his non-human cells and working with other dangerous drugs on Earth called fentanyl and heroin.”

Steve went back in the video to the moment they suspect it happened. “Peter wasn’t looking down when it happened, so we don’t know exactly when it happened or where he was injected. Bruce probably knows where by this point. We only have this video to go off of.” He went through the video again, looking for another moment before he paused it. “See this?” he asked, pointing to the device Natasha had saw. “Peter seemed to be focusing on it. See how it’s in the center of the screen? Peter noticed this. We are assuming this device is how this guy was able to get the drop on him.”

“There’s little logic to that,” Loki said. “Unless I don’t know the full extent of Peter’s abilities. His sense is biological, is it not? How would somebody create a device to bypass biology?”

“That’s what I was trying to get at before,” Rhodey said. “If somebody got past Friday, we’d be surprised, but it would make sense. We’re suggesting that somebody got past _Peter_ himself. You can’t just turn off something in his brain.”

“Then what do you think it is?” Natasha asked.

“You think it’s possible that this guy wasn’t working alone? It could have just been part of a recorder, transmitting the video somewhere else,” Sam said.

“Or maybe it’s a cloak,” Clint said. “Maybe he isn’t _bypassing_ Peter’s system, per say, but instead hiding him from sight. Keeping himself hidden from monitors like his suit.”

Steve shook his head. “That doesn’t explain how this guy was able to hide from a feeling. Peter doesn’t need to see something to feel something. This went on for weeks the guy said.”

“Peter has a computer in his suit, does he not?” Loki asked. A few people nodded. “Do we have access to it?”

“I can bring Karen in,” Friday said.

“Do that,” Clint said. “I think I know where you’re going with it. Karen?”

“Hello.”

“I want you to scan through the footage for the last, let’s say, month of Peter’s patrols. Even if Peter hadn’t said anything or the response wasn’t too severe, can you look for any signs that maybe his sense was acting up? You know, even just minor heartrate increases with no reason?”

“You think that Peter might not have even noticed when his sense went off?” Sam asked.

“Either that or he didn’t mention it,” Clint said. He nodded at Loki. Loki had a good thought process.

“I have found eight instances over the last four weeks where Peter’s heartrate increased slightly, yet he said nothing. They were only minor increases. My systems aren’t programmed to alert him at these changes. There was one more instance of this five weeks ago, so there has been a total of nine.”

“Do you have video for these times?” Steve asked.

“I do, Captain. I will start from the first moment.”

It was dark and Peter was swinging. “I’m tired,” he said to what looked like nobody but in reality was Karen. “I gotta take a break from the suit at some point.”

“Are you still sore from the explosion that happened a few days ago?”

“So drained,” Peter confirmed. He swung lower to the ground and landed on top of a streetlight. He didn’t move his body for a few seconds, instead just looking around the environment.

“Is everything alright, Peter?” Karen asked.

“Yeah,” Peter answered. “I think it’s time for me to head home, though. I’m too distracted.”

The video feed ended. “Karen, go back to where Peter stopped talking. Slow the feed down to 50% playback time. Enhance the quality,” Natasha said. She stood in front of the entire screen, watching intently before saying stop. She used her finger to draw a circle on the screen. “Look familiar?”

When she took a step back and everybody took a few steps forward, they saw the mask. He was too far away and surrounded by too much darkness to make out the rest of him, but the mask was there and, admittedly, creepy. “So, he _has_ been following for weeks,” Wanda said.

“Let’s watch the rest of the videos. Maybe we’ll see some sort of clue as to who this person is in there,” Rhodey said. “Steve, anybody on that list of people get out five weeks ago?”

“Four within the last two months,” Steve confirmed, “but one was a woman. Three contenders.” He grabbed the screen he was looking at and slid the three names to the bigger screen next to the video feed. Their faces, their names, and their crimes were on display. “It’s got to be one of these three.”

“Play the next clip,” Vision said.

Down in medical, Peter was worse. So much worse. He had deteriorated to the point that he couldn’t even say words anymore. His eyes were swelling and making it hard for him to keep them open. Blood was leaking from his nose at such a fast rate that he was soaking up multiple towels trying to stop it. Peter couldn’t even hold the towel up to his face on his own. It was Tony who held it there. “You’re gonna be okay,” Tony was saying, but he was very emotional and probably wasn’t doing much to comfort him.

Bucky yelled for Bruce when Peter passed out. Bruce came running in, carrying a tablet that he was working on _as he ran_. “What’s going on?”

“He’s pouring blood and he passed out,” Pepper said. Her eyes were full of tears. She, as well as the others, hated the small relief they felt over the fact that he was no longer conscious to feel such pain. “We can’t get the bleeding to stop.”

Bruce replaced Tony when it came to working on getting the bleeding stop and all but pushed Tony away. “Bucky, go tell Shuri what’s going on.”

“Friday, connect Shuri to this room,” Tony said. He was standing off to the side with Pepper.

“Spider-Man has a massive nosebleed,” Bruce said. “He’s not conscious anymore.”

“He couldn’t talk for some reason,” Bucky added. “He just…couldn’t. I don’t know if he lost his voice or lost the strength to. His eyes swelled up.”

“Bruce,” Tony said quietly from the side. “Please.”

Bruce seemed to freeze. Mentally, at least. Physically, he was trying to stop Peter’s bleeding. Mentally, he was somewhere deep in thought. The longer he thought, the more worried he looked. He glanced over at Bucky, fear on his face. He didn’t know what to do.

“Doctor Banner, I think I figured out how to isolate the unknown substance.”

“Send me the instructions.”

“Go,” Bucky said. He came up beside Bruce with a new towel. “Hurry. I’ll try to stop the bleeding.”

Only a minute after Bruce left, Loki came into the room. Tony and Pepper had moved back beside Peter’s bed and Pepper was holding his hand. “We believe we know who it was,” he said. He looked at the scene in front of him. Peter bleeding. Dying. “They are going after him as we speak. Perhaps they will find an antidote while there.” He approached the table and with a wave of his hand conjured up a clean towel.

“You’re magical,” Tony said. “Can’t you help?”

“I cannot,” Loki said solemnly. “My magical abilities do not include healing. They are more…mental.”

“How did you guys find the guy?” Bucky asked.

“The initial belief was that this guy somehow went around his sense, but we discovered that his sense _was_ going off, albeit only subtly. We reviewed the footage of those instances. There was also a list of people he has gotten arrested. Some of them have been let out recently. We narrowed the list down and eventually came to just one who matches up with the body type of the man in the videos. He got out of prison four days before the first sighting.”

“The first?” Pepper questioned.

“It does not appear that he saw the man, but his computer did. The mask and all. It started over a month ago. Nine appearances. Ten, including today.”

“Making the first attack on the tenth sighting sounds planned out,” Bucky pointed out. “He must have really been keeping track of the kid.”

“What’s his name? What was he in jail for?” Pepper asked.

“Joseph Rich. He was arrested for assault. Spider-Man found him beating up his wife outside of a bar,” Loki answered.

“I remember him,” Tony said. “He got expelled from MIT two years ago. Science experiment gone wrong. He wasn’t permitted to be in the labs there, and he made a mistake. When I saw Pete get him arrested, I did a little more research on him to see what he’s been up to. Can’t hold a job, frequent arrests, and constant harassment of MIT. He’s a smart guy, though. Some of the work he did at MIT was promising. Before he got expelled, I had a lead on him from some of his professors. They suggested me hiring him after graduation, but that obviously got canned.”

“I think I got the bleeding to stop,” Bucky said. “He bled too much for a normal person. Does he make blood quicker than people do?”

“I don’t have the answer to that,” Tony admitted. “It’s never come up before. I’d assume he does, considering how fast his metabolism is. Bruce probably knows.”

Once the bleeding stopped, they all noticed how funny his breathing sounded. It was raspy and wheezy all at once. Bucky put the breathing mask back on Peter. It had some blood on it from the massive nosebleed. Tony was covered in blood, too, but he still sat on the bed next to his kid and held his hand. Bucky moved away for Pepper, who stood beside the bed. Loki and Bucky stood by the foot of the bed, standing in silence as they waited for Bruce or an update of some sort.

Luckily, Bruce came first.

Bruce came into the room with a syringe. “Tony,” he said, “I think we figured it out.”

“You can fix him?”

“We think so. When I put some of this into the blood I drew, I couldn’t find any traces of the substances.”

“Then give it to him.”

Bruce did. As he did, he admitted they were giving a huge guess as to what the dosage was. He assumed on the lower side because he could always give Peter more, but an overdose would be harder to fix. All there was really left to do now was wait. Every fifteen minutes, Bruce would check his heart rate, his breathing, his blood pressure, among other things. After an hour, he drew more blood to see how everything was reacting.

“The levels of all those different substances are lower than before,” Bruce said. “It’s working.”

After another forty-five minutes, Friday made the announcement that the team had returned. Loki went up to meet them. “How’s Peter?” was the first thing three or four of them all asked at once.

“Better,” he said. “It seems Doctor Banner was able to work something out. He administered it nearly two hours ago.”

“So, Peter’s feeling better?” Clint asked.

“Well, he lost consciousness. I cannot say when exactly as he was already unconscious when I joined them. However, Banner has been checking on him constantly. He seems pleased. He said it’s working. Did you guys succeed?”

“He’s definitely the one who attacked Peter,” Steve answered.

“This guy had plans on his walls,” Rhodey said with a scoff. “I’m sorry, but did he really have to be the stereotypical nutjob with a need for revenge? Red lines connecting everything, articles cut out, pictures on the wall with darts. Crazy.”

“His suit was high tech. When we took him down, he was not nearly as good of a fighter as the video feed suggests, and after we inspected his suit, we think the suit was giving him the speed and stealth that allowed him to best Spider-Man. We think it also helped him sneak past his sense because of the stealth. Obviously, his sense picked him up, but barely and in a way that he didn’t really acknowledge or notice it,” Sam explained. “The antenna on his mask _did_ work as a cloak, though that was from his suit and other electronic feeds. It jammed his suit and blocked his signals. 

“We found more of the stuff,” Natasha said. “I was planning on bringing it down to Bruce.”

“Prepare yourself,” Loki warned. “There is a lot of blood. Nobody has bothered to clean it up just yet.”

“He wasn’t bleeding when I saw him,” Wanda said. “What happened?”

“He began bleeding from his nose, also before I got there. It took a long while to get it to stop, but they managed.”

It was around three o’clock in the morning when Peter finally came around. His bloody shirt had been taken off. Instead of replacing it, he just had a blanket covering him. When Peter opened his eyes, he saw Bruce sitting on a chair at the foot of his bed. He looked exhausted, but he was staring at a tablet intently. Peter blinked slowly and looked around for Tony. He saw Tony also sitting on a chair, except this chair was right next to his bed. That’s when Peter noticed that there was someone in his bed. He turned his head and saw that it was Pepper.

“Bruce?” Peter finally called out. Quietly. Tony and Pepper were asleep.

Bruce looked up with shocked eyes and then stood so quickly that Peter questioned if he had ever been sitting. “How are you feeling?” Bruce asked. “I need more than just ‘good’ or ‘bad’ okay?”

“Okay,” Peter said slowly. “My, uh, my head hurts kinda bad. I’m still a little drowsy, and I’m a little nauseous, but not too bad. What happened?”

“You were attacked,” Bruce explained. “You were out as Spider-Man. This guy manufactured a drug that I have never seen before, but there were some drugs involved that I recognized. The drug he gave you was specifically meant for attacking your non-human cells. It was fast acting. From what I’ve heard, you immediately forgot it happened and instead went to school. I haven’t had the chance to see the video, but I don’t think I really need to. Everybody teamed up to find out who this guy was. They figured it out. You didn’t tell anybody that your spider sense has been acting up.”

“It hasn’t.”

“Your suit was able to come up with almost ten instances. You didn’t say anything to her, but your heart went up slightly and you focused on your surroundings before moving on.”

He remembered those times. “I didn’t think it was telling me anything,” he said. “I just got a little uncomfortable, but it went away quickly every time. It wasn’t worth mentioning. I didn’t even consider it my Spidey-sense. Who was it?”

“It was someone you caught assaulting his wife a while ago,” Bruce said. “He got out a few days before the first time your sense went off. It sounds like he appeared in your field of view every time.”

“I never saw anybody.”

“Maybe you didn’t, but your suit did. They used those clips cross-referenced with a list of potential suspects to figure out who it was.”

Apparently, they were talking too loudly because Pepper stirred. She opened her eyes and saw Peter awake. “Pete,” she exclaimed. She sat up and got a better look at him. “Hey, you. How are you feeling?”

“A little rough,” he said and then accepted her hug.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“No, but Bruce gave me the rundown of everything.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Honestly, going to bed. I don’t remember waking up or going to school or on patrol.”

“You got attacked on your way to school. Happy was running late, so you swung. Ned called us at lunch. He was worried.”

“Was I that bad?”

“You only got worse,” Bruce piped up. “It was worse than touch and go. You had said something about your spider sense warning you.”

“About what?”

“Not pulling through.”

Pepper’s eyes had tears in them. She gave a sad smile. “But you’re okay. That’s what matters right now.” Peter closed his eyes when Pepper kissed his forehead, and when he opened them, he glanced over at Tony. “You probably want to see him. I’ll wake him.”

“He probably needs the sleep,” Peter said, though he said it weakly. Not much conviction in his voice. He really _did_ want to see him.

All it took was a small nudge from Pepper and Tony was awake. “Pete?” he asked, sitting up and looking at the bed. When he saw Peter looking back at him, he jumped up and leaned over Pepper to hug him. “Christ, kid.”

“Hi, dad,” he greeted. He put his forehead against Tony’s shoulder and let his eyes shut. “I’m not feeling so great. I wanna sleep in my bed.”

“You’re not leaving this bed for approximately seven weeks. I made the rules and I will enforce them,” Tony said, hugging Peter even tighter.

“He’s joking,” Pepper said.

“Hardly.”

“You’re going to stay at least the rest of the night and tomorrow here,” Bruce said. “I need to keep an eye on you.”

“We can’t do that from my room?”

“Peter,” Tony said, pulling away from the hug to look at him. “You were _dying_. Please.”

“Okay. I will. I’m sorry.”

Pepper and Tony switched out and Bruce brought in another bed for her to lay in while Tony laid with Peter. The panic was pretty much over so they both felt okay to properly rest. As did Bruce, who was confident enough in Peter’s healing that he went to bed. Granted, bed was just in the next room on a couch, but he still left the room and closed his eyes.

Just because Peter was talking and more attentive than he had been didn’t mean that he was suddenly better. He woke up a few hours later with the urge to throw up, but he refused to do so over himself, Tony, or the floor, so he rolled over the arm of the bed and searched for a trashcan. The movement, naturally, woke up Tony who had called out for Bruce and moved after Peter. Peter was slow and unsteady, though he was faster and had more strength than he had before. He pulled away from Tony’s hands and pushed himself towards the corner where the trashcan had been. Tony noticed where he was on his way to and he grabbed Peter again, this time helping him get there. When they were close enough, Tony had to stop Peter from crashing to the ground before he threw up.

Bruce was in the room only a moment after. The machines had screamed before Tony yelled so he was already on his way. Pepper, too, had woken up in a panic to see what all the commotion was. She was kneeling with Tony, comforting Peter. Bruce stood near the bed, turning the beeping off of the machines. The machines were beeping because Peter had knocked out the IVs. Ripped out, more like it, which was never a good thing to do.

“You okay?” Pepper asked after Peter stopped throwing up. “All done, or should we wait here for a few minutes?"

“Think ‘m done,” Peter slurred. He put his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. “That hurt.”

“Your fever seems to be back up,” Tony acknowledged. He had his hand on Peter’s cheek and then he moved it to his neck. “You’re warmer than before.”

“Help him back to bed,” Bruce said. “I’ll check him out.”

It took a minute before Peter consented to standing. Once he was in bed, Bruce hooked him back up to everything. His heartrate was a little fast, his O2 sats were down, and his fever had gone back up. “Should we be panicking?” Tony asked, already halfway there.

“I don’t think so,” Bruce said with a hint of a laugh in his voice. “Nobody thought he was going to be back to 100%. Pete, I’m gonna have to put a mask on you for right now, okay? Get some more oxygen in you, and then we’ll switch to a cannula.” Peter nodded at all of that. “How’s pain? Give me as many details as you can.”

“My head really hurts,” Peter said quietly. “Just pounding. Everywhere.”

“Your stomach?”

“I still feel a little nauseous, but nothing too bad anymore.”

“And your head? Not pain, but clarity. Dizziness, confusion…?”

“Not really. A little dizzy, I guess, but I’m not, like, spinning.”

Bruce nodded and seemed satisfied. “I’ll draw some blood and check you out. I’ll give you some of your pain meds in the meantime.”

“Thank you.”

Tony and Pepper both relaxed a little bit. Bruce wasn’t panicking in the slightest, so they shouldn’t, either. Bruce was able to draw blood without a problem. After giving him the medicine, he left the room to go check his blood. He wanted to make sure that the antidote was still working.

Pepper sat beside Peter on the bed and put her hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned into it. “Do you want to go back to sleep?”

“What time is it?”

Friday answered. “6:41.”

“Is my phone down here?”

“Teenagers,” Tony scoffed, but he still went across the room to grab the bag Pepper had brought down sometime the day before. It had some clothes in it, his shower stuff, and, of course, his phone and charger. Tony grabbed the phone and set it on Peter’s chest along with a shirt, since Peter was still shirtless.

“I got in contact with Ned last night,” Pepper said, moving her hand from Peter so he can grab his phone. “I told him you were very sick and we were taking care of you, and that you’d get in contact with him when you can. I’m guessing that’s why you want your phone.”

“Yeah,” Peter confirmed. He unlocked his phone and scrolled through a dozen messages from Ned.

**Ned:** Make sure u text me

**Ned:** Its been a few hrs r u ok??

**Ned:** Nobody is texting me back

**Ned:** Youd tell me if you were dead right

**Ned:** Omg I meant that as a joke but it came out so morbid

**Ned:** I’m sorry dude I texted MJ

**Ned:** I cant freak out alone

**Ned:** I regret it now me and her are both freaking out

**Ned:** Pepper just called. She sounded scared

**Ned:** Its really that bad?

**Ned:** Call me when you can im gonna try to sleep

**Ned:** MJ came over she couldn’t sleep either

**Ned:** Still no news?

The last text came in around 5:30, the time Ned usually woke up for school. He was freaked out. He had a few texts from MJ, too, so he checked those out before responding to Ned.

**MJ: **Not that I’m worried or anything but are you okay

**MJ:** Ned is scared but he gets scared easily. I don’t know when to take him seriously

**MJ:** Should I take him seriously?

**MJ:** I guess I should

**MJ: **Night Pete

“They’re really worried,” Peter said quietly. He felt guilty even though, rationally, he knew he shouldn’t. “Can I call them?”

“Is that you asking if we can leave so you can call them?” Tony asked.

“No, you can stay. I just figured it’s more polite to ask before I get on the phone.”

Ned answered before the first ring finished ringing. “Oh my god, Pete? Are you okay? MJ! Peter called.”

“Hey, dude,” Peter greeted, moving the mask away from his face so he can talk properly. “MJ slept over?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘slept over,’” MJ’s voice piped up, which meant that Ned had put him on speaker. “We studied a lot. Ned cried. Are you okay?”

“You almost cried, too.”

“Keyword there was almost.”

Peter smiled and laughed a little, maybe in relief from hearing his friends again. “I’m okay,” he answered. “I won’t be in school today, but I’m okay.”

“So, you’re okay, but not really,” MJ summarized.

“Be straight with us, Peter,” Ned said, his voice pleading. “We were scared.”

Peter bit his lip, looking over at Tony and then at Pepper. Both were looking at him, probably curious as to how he was going to handle talking to his friends. He started feeling overwhelmed as the weight of everything started falling on him. He really almost died. He was still sick, he was realizing, because his chest hurt a little bit from not breathing properly. He put the mask to help his breathing back on his face and took a second.

“Peter?” MJ asked, her voice softer than it had been moments ago.

“I’ll be okay,” he said, taking off the mask once he felt like he could breathe again. “It was…well, it sucked. It still does, but I’ll be okay. No more scares.”

“You’re being vague, and that means it’s really bad, right? Of course it does.”

“It _was_ really bad,” Peter confirmed, “but it isn’t really bad anymore. I would have called you before, but the last time I was awake, it was only for a few minutes, and before that, well, it was still during the bad.”

“Touch and go?” MJ asked.

“Touch and go?” Peter echoed. “It was…kinda worse than that for a while, but they figured out the medicine to give me, and it’s working. It’s working a lot, actually. I’m still sick, but I feel so much better than I did yesterday.”

“What was wrong? What happened?”

“Ned told me how you were before you left, and it didn’t sound great, especially considering your _other_ side.”

Sometimes Peter forgot that MJ knew he was Spider-Man. “I guess I made someone mad when I got him arrested. He made something to attack my Spider-Man side and it worked, kind of shutting me down from the inside. I don’t remember too much.”

“Can we come visit? I’ll skip school, I’ll do it.”

“Ned, you’re not missing school. Can we come over after school?”

MJ was asking, not telling. That was a little out of character. “Can they come over after school today?” Peter asked, looking over at Tony and Pepper. “I promise, I won’t get out of bed if you guys don’t want me to. I won’t even ask to move to my room. Please?”

“Yes, your friends can come over,” Pepper answered.

“You’re with them right now?” Ned questioned. “Are you not okay enough to be by yourself? Or am I overthinking things?”

“That’s pretty much it,” Peter confirmed. “They said yes.” Ned said something, but Bruce had come back in the room which distracted him. “Hey, guys? I have to go, okay? No panic. I’ll text you.”

“You’re okay?” Ned asked.

“Yeah. Bruce is here to talk. I’ll keep you guys updated. See you later.” Bruce was kind enough to wait for Peter to get off the phone. He hadn’t come in the room in a rush, so whatever he had to say probably wasn’t dire. “Sup doc?”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Honestly, you’d think you and Tony were biologically related. Your medicine working?”

“Yeah. My head still hurts, but I feel it kicking in.”

“Is the antidote you whipped up still working?” Tony asked. “No worries?”

“No worries, at least not any new ones,” Bruce confirmed. “I’m gonna give him some more medicine, but that’s expected. You take medicine in different doses over time, right? So, I’ll give him some more. Pete, you’re probably gonna get drowsy. Don’t worry if that happens, okay?” He was looking over at Pepper and Tony when he said that. “He wasn’t awake last time I gave him the medicine, so we don’t know how he’ll handle the medicine awake.”

Bruce was definitely just talking to Pepper and Tony and giving _them_ the reassurance. It made Peter want to laugh and cry all at once. He was glad he didn’t remember seeing them freaking out. Maybe he never saw them freak out. “He’s okay enough to have guests, right? We told him his friends can come over after school,” Tony said.

“I’d like if he stays down here for me to keep an eye on him still.”

“Oh, he’s staying here. Forever. His friends can come down and visit every now and again starting today.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Tony,” Pepper said, rolling her eyes. “They can visit every day if that’s what he wants.”

“You both are crazy. You know that, right?” Bruce said. “You’re perfect for each other in that way, and Peter is just about as crazy as the two of you. It was honestly a perfect match.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand how we’re being crazy,” Tony said. “I think we’re being perfectly reasonable.”

The conversation dragged on for a few minutes, everybody going back and forth jokingly about how crazy they were and how overprotective Tony and Pepper were. Honestly, Peter started losing all their words. He wasn’t picking up on what they were saying. He started feeling strange, and he didn’t want to. 

“Hey, I’m…” Peter trailed off, tapping his fingers on his phone anxiously. “I’m kinda getting nauseous again. And I feel, I dunno, off.”

“That’s fine,” Bruce said.

“That’s _fine_?” Tony questioned incredulously.

“I haven’t even given him the medicine yet, Tony. We know he’s sick. He’s not going to stop exhibiting symptoms. Think you’re gonna throw up?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Bruce took a look over at the monitor to check his stats and he frowned before finally giving him his medicine. “It’s still fast acting,” he observed. “It’s unnerving how quickly you’re going from okay to not so okay.”

“I’m not okay?”

“You’re okay,” Bruce amended. “You’re just getting all sweaty and your heartrate is up.”

“He’s okay?” Tony asked. “That doesn’t sound okay.”

Bruce smiled. “He’s okay. I’m gonna sit in here for a little bit to watch out to make sure he doesn’t get any worse. We already knew it is fast acting. While I’m treating it, I haven’t gotten rid of it yet. Until it’s gone, I’d imagine it’d hit him fast every time.”

“He already had the fever and nausea before,” Pepper said.

“Yes, but the rest all happened at once. He got spacey within, what, a couple of minutes? That’s fast. It wasn’t gradual. But, I’m not worried, and you shouldn’t be, either. Let’s wait and see how the medicine hits him before we worry. Deal?”

Peter had to acknowledge just how _not_ worried Bruce was. It couldn’t have been serious. “Fair enough,” he agreed, getting more comfortable in bed. His phone buzzed with a text. It was from Ned in their group chat with MJ.

**Ned:** You said youd text and here we are

**Peter:** At least let me finish a conversation with Bruce lol

**Ned:** Sorry

**Ned:** You just really scared us

**MJ:** Yes, you keep saying that

**Ned:** ☹

**Peter:** I’m okay

**Peter:** He came in to give n e more medicine

**Peter:** me

**Ned:** why did you need more

**MJ:** Ned everybody takes medicine periodically

**MJ: **Ever notice on the bottle how it says x amount every y hours?

**Ned:** Ok now is not the time to be mean to me

**Peter:** It’s fast acting

**Peter:** The drug I was attacked with not the medicine

**Ned:** wait

**MJ:** Explain

**Peter:** I told u guys

**Peter:** The guy made smthn to attack my spiderman side

**Ned:** I don’t know y I didnt think u meant he drugged u

**MJ: **So you still have the drug in you?

**Peter:** Yeah

**Peter:** But Bruce got.medicine

**Peter:** Ill be ok

**Peter: **I guess it comes n goes

**Peter:** kinda

**Ned:** wym kinda

**Peter:** when it comes it comes quick

**MJ:** Because it’s fast acting. I get it

**Peter:** if I stop txtin g dont panic

**Peter:** kinda tired

“Pete?”

Peter blinked tiredly, searching for the owner of the voice. “Mom?”

“Yes, baby,” she said. He blinked a few more times and saw her sitting on the bed beside him. He reached his hand out and she grabbed it. “We were talking to you. Did you hear us?”

He didn’t. “Think I fell asleep.”

“I think so, too,” she said. “Can you tell us how you’re feeling?”

“Tired,” he said honestly. “Don’t really feel anything right now except tired.”

“No headache? Nausea?”

He looked over and saw Tony also standing there. “No. Just tired. Spacey.”

“Still feel like you’re gonna throw up?” he asked. Peter shook his head. “Should we let him sleep?”

“Yeah, let him sleep,” Bruce said from somewhere behind Tony, but Peter’s eyes didn’t work that good at that moment. That was all the encouragement Peter needed to shut his eyes. He felt Pepper kiss his forehead, but barely. He was very tired.

When he woke up next, he didn’t see Pepper or Tony with him, but someone was there. “Bucky?”

“Hey, pal,” Bucky greeted. He was sitting in a chair next to the bed, reading a book. He put the book down when Peter spoke, though. “How you feeling?”

“Like I haven’t moved from this spot in a year,” he groaned, stretching before sitting up. “My head’s killing me.”

“Bruce is napping in the other room. Want me to wake him?”

“No,” he said. Everybody was probably exhausted and needed their sleep. “If it gets worse, I’ll let you know. Maybe I just gotta wake up a little more. What time is it?”

“Little after two.”

“Where’s my parents?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. Nobody really heard Peter called Pepper mom, everybody was still getting used to Peter calling Tony dad, and now he just referred to both of them as his parents. Peter honestly didn’t even catch it. “Tony is getting a shower and Pepper stepped out to answer a few emails and take some calls. There were rumors about you being rushed up here from school. She’s denying them.”

Peter felt around for his phone and found it underneath him. He opened up Twitter and searched up his name and saw multiple articles talking about a mysterious illness he had and speculating. Thankfully, he didn’t see any Spider-Man reference. “That’s a small mess that needs cleaned up,” he said. “Think I’ll need to make an appearance out in public?”

“I think Tony would explode if you even suggested that in his presence.”

He smiled at Bucky’s little joke and checked his messages. There was nothing interesting except for an update from Ned that Happy was going to bring MJ and him up after school. When Peter asked for them to come over, he didn’t realize that they weren’t in the Tower. He recognized the compound’s medical center now that he actually was paying attention. “I think you were there when I was sick,” Peter said. Bucky nodded. “Was I actually as bad as they were telling me, or were they exaggerating because I’m their kid and they were worried?”

“I don’t know what they told you, but if you have to ask, I’m assuming they didn’t even tell you the full extent. It was bad, kid. Bruce needed Princess Shuri of Wakanda to help him figure it out, and even then, it took a little bit. Random bleeding, passing out…Bruce needed to draw blood and they needed help holding you down because you were in so much pain.”

“And I oop.”

Bucky looked at him with a blank face. “Is that a new internet thing?”

“Yeah. Just like…and I oop.”

“It was serious, Peter.”

“I know, I know, I’m just…I don’t know, tired. Everything is so serious, and I kind of need things to not be so serious right now.” His eyes were watering now, and he tried to wipe them away. The overwhelming feeling from earlier was back now except stronger. “Not really remembering the whole ordeal scares me, and the fact that I couldn’t stop it scares me, and everybody keeps reminding me how I almost died, and I’m kind of scared of how much _that _part doesn’t scare me, and I just need, I don’t know, something _else_.”

That caught Bucky completely off guard. This kid just admitted, in the midst of a panic attack, that the thought of him almost dying didn’t scare him. That was a lot, but Bucky was going to do his part. He’d tell Tony and Pepper in private later, and right now he would make Peter’s time a little easier. “What does ‘and I oop’ mean? I don’t think I can figure this one out with context clues.”

Peter took a moment and calmed himself. Bucky was giving him this little out. “Um, and I oop, it kinda just means, like, you were caught off guard, or if you…Well, if you’re telling a story to your parents and you almost snitch on yourself, it’s like ‘and I oop’ cause you gotta stop yourself. Or, you’ve seen Titanic, right? You know how Rose tells Jack she’ll never let go, but then she does?”

“And I oop,” Bucky said, nodding. “So, it’s when you either do what you said you wouldn’t do, when you’re caught off guard, or if you almost say something you shouldn’t say?”

“You get the idea.”

The conversation remained lighthearted for another twenty minutes before Tony came back. He smiled when he saw Peter awake and talking. “Hey, kiddo. How’re you feeling?”

That question was stressing him out. “I’m okay. Kinda hungry.”

“I’d imagine you have to be. Anything in particular?”

“_Something_.”

Tony laughed. “_Something_ it is. Fri, how much longer will Pepper be?”

There was a brief pause, probably as Friday asked Pepper and Pepper responded. “She should be finished within the next half an hour.”

“Have her bring Spidey something to eat. He doesn’t care what.”

“Spidey,” Peter repeated.

“I gotta change it up sometimes,” Tony defended. “Everybody keeps asking when they can come visit you. I might have to expel a few Avengers if they keep it up.”

“How are you gonna expel anybody?” Peter asked. “Anybody can visit whenever they want. Wait, anybody can visit whenever they want, as long it’s before or after Ned and MJ visit. Or is that too rude?”

“It isn’t rude enough,” Tony said matter-of-factly. “These people know no boundaries.”

“Are you really one to talk?” Bucky scoffed.

Tony looked like he wanted to argue, but then pointed at Bucky and said, “point.” He pulled up the only other remaining chair in the room and plopped down into it. “You wanna know who keeps sneaking in and out of here as if nobody notices? Loki. He acts like he’s so sneaky, but I saw him _at least_ eight times through the night and day. Why are you and this space alien criminal best friends?”

Their friendship was really a confusing thing to everybody else. At the same time, he didn’t even think Loki would refer to it as a friendship. Loki was very odd. “Did you know that Loki is really only a teenager in our years?”

The look on both Tony and Bucky’s faces said that no, they didn’t know. “How do you figure that?”

“Asgardians average lifespan is about 5000, and then it’s just math. I don’t know exactly how old Loki is because he won’t tell me, but I know it’s about 1000.” Peter paused and let Tony do the math, and after a few seconds he made a shocked face. “See? 16, putting our life expectancy at 80. He might be a couple hundred years older than that, but still, even if he was 1,200, he’d only be 19. He’s a teenager here. Their ages and rate of maturation is still different, but that’s what he’d be considered here.”

“How in the hell can we hate a teenager?” Tony asked, looking directly at Bucky. “Why didn’t Thor stress his age before?” Bucky only shrugged. Bucky wasn’t around for when Thor was on Earth more often. “I guess that does explain why you are friends. He’s close to your age.”

“Loki’s easy to be around,” Peter said. “He’s funny, too, in, like, a dry-wit and sarcastic kind of way. He’s really smart, too. I don’t know. I like him.”

“He seems to like you, too,” Tony said. “A weird friendship that nobody expected. Me and Rhodey were the same, though. Two very different people, but we’re best friends.”

Peter knew that. He saw how close they were, especially before they all made peace after the Accords situation. After that, too, Rhodey was around a lot at the beginning back when everybody was remembering how to live around each other. He also knew how different the two were. It was hard not to see. “I’m sorry. I know me being friends with Loki made you a little uncomfortable.”

“At first it did,” Tony confirmed, “but that’s not your fault. We were all distrustful of Loki when he came back to stay. There’s plenty of reason for that. But, he’s proving himself to be sincere in his reasoning for being here. It doesn’t look like he’s up to any trickery, and you seem to trust him.”

“I do.”

“It’s just a tad bit creepy when he comes down here with a straight face void of emotion,” Tony admitted, but he said it playfully.

“You get used to it, honestly. Now, I’m enjoying hearing you talk about how you seem to be warming up to Loki, but I _really_ have to pee. Please let me go to the bathroom. I am begging you.”

A few hours later, after another brief nap, food, and bathroom break (Tony and Bucky supported his entire weight the whole way to the bathroom and back, but he was allowed in the bathroom alone, thank god), they got the heads up that Happy was almost there with Ned and MJ. Only a couple of minutes out, so it wasn’t much of a heads up. Bruce had woken up by this time and took out his IVs that way he can_ finally_ put a shirt on. He asked Bruce for more pain medicine, too, which he was granted after he explained about the headache that had not gone away. The medicine was great, but he was kind of annoyed that he had to put the IV back in to get it. Bruce said it was easier with the IV in because he was going to be getting medicine off and on anyways.

When MJ and Ned came into the room, Ned ran over to his hospital bed and hugged him. "A _hospital_ bed, Pete.”

“I’m okay, dude,” Peter said, hugging him back before Ned pulled away. MJ approached the bed kind of slowly and a little unsure in her movements. “Hey, MJ. Don’t look so scared.”

“Me, scared? Parker, you must be sick,” MJ said. She walked around to the other side of the bed that Ned wasn’t on. Peter had been sitting up on the bed, still partly under the covers, but sitting all the same.

“You guys don’t gotta stand there all…weird,” Peter said, wanting to laugh but not knowing how to make a joke. “I’m sure one of you grabbed my homework, and I’m willing to bet it was MJ.”

“You know me so well,” she said, patting her bag. She took a seat in one of the two chairs, and Ned took the other.

“You oughta see Happy,” Ned said. “I think he was even more scared than we were.”

“He said he hasn’t seen you yet,” MJ added.

“He’s a softy. I knew it. I hope he doesn’t feel too bad.”

“Why would he?” Ned asked.

“He was supposed to take me to school yesterday. I guess he couldn’t, and I swung to school like an idiot instead of finding someone else to take me. So, he’s probably feeling some type of way even though he shouldn’t.” He sighed. “I’ll see him probably before you guys go back home and then call him stupid if he’s mad at himself.”

“You gotta give us, like, all the details. What _happened_?”

“Ned,” Peter sighed, because he really didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Okay, okay, I’ll give you guys the rundown, but then we gotta talk about something else, okay? Because this has taken up most of my waking time and it’s kind of stressing me out now.”

Peter went through all the details he remembered, what others told him, and what he was able to piece together, starting from being attacked on his way to school, to immediately forgetting it happened, to what exactly his illness entailed, to the fact that Bruce needed to talk to the Princess of Wakanda, the smartest person on the entire planet, to figure it out. “I don’t remember much of yesterday,” he stressed. “I don’t really remember all that time before I passed out, but they made it sound bad. _But_, I’m okay now. They found the antidote, they’re keeping an eye on me, and I feel fine.”

“You really almost died,” MJ said quietly. Hearing her say that, and how sad she sounded, kind of broke his heart.

“I’m okay now.” It was weak, he knew, but what else could he say?

“Can I hug you?”

It was such a ridiculous thing to ask, but she looked like she was so unsure of everything. She knew she could hug him, but for some reason, she needed him to say that. He could understand that to a point. “If you come to me,” he said. “I think everybody would _actually_ tie me to the bed if I get up.” Small jokes. Less serious. Everybody needed less serious. She got out of her seat and sat on the bed, hugging him tightly. The hug went on for…well, for a while. He didn’t want to let go, but he knew it was going to get awkward for Ned, and maybe for MJ, too. She wasn’t letting go, but what if she wasn’t letting go because Peter wasn’t letting go (but what if she wasn’t letting go because _she_ didn’t want to let go)? “Ned, bring it in, man. I know you want to.” Another little funny comment. Maybe nobody would cry now.

When they all pulled away, with Ned and MJ being very aware of the IVs and making sure to avoid leaning on them, things got a lot more casual. Ned and MJ returned to their seats, MJ gave him his homework, and the three nerds discussed the lectures from the day, giving him a short tutoring session to catch him up. One of the cons of going to a smart person school was that one day absent could really throw you off. Eventually, they got on different topics from school, like a funny video Ned saw the other day that led to MJ showing them a funny video _she _saw that led to a YouTube spiral (and Ned and MJ both moved to the bed, but that was okay. He didn’t feel crowded).

“Pete?”

The sudden voice talking startled him and he jumped. Ned and MJ were looking at him, both worried again. It was Ned who spoke. He was drowsy and slow, and the startle meant he had dozed off. “Huh? Sorry. Don’t look scared. I think I just fell asleep.”

“Should we get someone?” MJ questioned.

“Honestly, I just dozed off,” Peter said, sitting up from his mostly-laying position. “I’m fine. I’ve been taking naps all day. I promise it’s okay. Please don’t look at me like that.”

“Should we leave?” Ned asked.

“Really, guys,” he said, trying to keep his annoyance in check, “just dozed. That’s it. Completely. Truthfully. Honestly. Frankly. Candidly.” He would have kept going with his words, but a yawn cut him off.

Ned checked the time on his phone. “Happy is going to be coming down to make us leave soon. He said he was taking us home at 7, and it’s quarter till.”

“Are you going to be allowed to come to school tomorrow?” MJ asked.

“I’m not even going to bother asking because I know they’ll say no,” he sighed. “I’m not really feeling up to school anyways. I want to go just so people stop speculating about me.”

“What do you mean?” Ned asked.

“I guess people found out about my ‘mysterious illness’ and it’s been on the news. Pepper has been denying it, but words don’t really do much when I’m absent from school. People just took the fact that I wasn’t there today as proof that I’m sick.”

“Why can’t they know you’re sick?”

“Because then the person who attacked Spider-Man might make that connection,” MJ answered for Peter.

“Exactly. She’s trying, but they don’t want me going to school when I have this stuff in my system. It makes sense, but still.”

“A few people asked me about it today. I told them it wasn’t any of their business,” Ned said. “What should I tell them tomorrow if they keep asking?”

“Pepper was telling people that I needed a few days after the one year of May,” Peter said. “One year from the funeral was just a few days ago. It’s believable.”

MJ gave him a sad look and put her hand on his arm. “I know that’s probably been hard for you this week,” she said.

“Yeah, the past couple of weeks kind of sucked, but it’s all good. That’s just the excuse we’re using, anyways.”

“You guys just about ready?”

The three of them all looked towards the door and saw Happy. Peter had to admit that Happy looked pretty terrible. He obviously hadn’t slept well at all, and he wasn’t even looking at Peter. “Get over here and hug your favorite nephew,” Peter said, half joking.

“I don’t have any other nephews and you’re _still_ not my favorite.”

Peter grinned. “But you didn’t deny me being a nephew.” Had he ever referred to himself as Happy’s nephew? He didn’t think so. It was true anyways. Happy and Tony were so much like brothers that it was insane. Peter really did insert himself as family to everybody. Happy rolled his eyes and crossed them room, giving Peter what looked like a reluctant hug but was actually a very tight one. “Stop beating yourself up. I felt it from across the room.”

“I’m so sorry, kid,” Happy said quietly, only squeezing him tighter.

“I’m the one who didn’t get a ride. Don’t blame yourself. I don’t. Nobody else does. Because it isn’t your fault.”

“I’m coming back up here tonight after I drop these two off at home,” Happy said as he let go of Peter. “I’ll see you again then.”

“If he’s awake,” Ned said. “He was falling asleep on us.”

“I’m tired!”

“Maybe you’ll be more entertaining to him than we were,” Ned said dramatically.

“Leave,” Peter said. “Take your jealous ass out of here.”

“I’m telling Tony you said that word,” Happy said.

Peter rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Ned and MJ. “I’ll text you guys. Can’t promise it’ll be today because I really might knock out for the night, but you’ll hear from me by tomorrow at least.”

“You better,” Ned said before they did their handshake.

“Please feel better,” MJ said when she hugged him bye.

“I will.”

Upstairs, during their visit, Bucky found Tony and Pepper and pulled them away. “I gotta talk to you two,” he said, keeping his voice low so that nobody but those two could hear him. They both followed him after sharing a worried look with each other, and he led them to a hallway away from the others. “Peter said something worrisome.”

“What did he say?” Pepper asked.

“He started to have a minor panic attack when it was just him and I. We were talking, and he tried blowing off how serious everything was. I stopped him, and he started rambling about how he needed it to be less serious. He let slip that he was scared of how _not_ scared he was of dying.”

Pepper put her face in her hands. She wasn’t crying, but she was worried, and she needed to close her eyes for a second. Tony, too, had to take a second before responding. “Are you sure that’s what he meant? It wasn’t him rambling during a panic attack where he says too many things to really keep track of it all?”

Bucky didn’t get angry over the fact that Tony was asking him if he was sure Peter implied that he wasn’t scared of dying. He knew that Tony was just trying to find a way for it to turn out that Peter didn’t say that. “I’m sure. I let the seriousness drop and he calmed down after that. I don’t know if he realized he said that or not. He didn’t comment on it.”

“What are we supposed to do about this?” Tony asked, but he was asking Pepper, not Bucky. “Do we confront him, or just keep an eye on him, or go straight to his therapist?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t want him to feel like Bucky ratted him out so he feels like he can’t talk to anybody, but this is serious. _Do we_ take him seriously?”

“We can’t _not_ take him seriously. Even if he just said it because he was in too much pain before, this is serious.”

“Even with all of the surveillance we have, I don’t trust him to be alone if that’s on his mind.”

“He wouldn’t just…do it, would he?”

Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose. “I would love to say he wouldn’t, but I also would have said he’d never say something like that, so now I don’t know.”

Tony, with tears in his eyes, nodded in agreement. “Let’s just get past the drugging first. Get him healthy. He’s stuck in medical with someone with him at all times anyways. He won’t be alone, so there’s no worry. We can talk to his therapist about it that way she knows, and we’ll tell her not to address it directly, and we’ll see what she thinks we should do. Then we’ll move from there. Sound like a plan?”

“The best plan we can have for this,” she sighed.

“I’ll go get reindeer ears to go down to see him after Happy takes the kids home. Let him visit.”

“And I’ll go talk to Bruce about what his plans are for him. If he thinks Pete’s okay to be moved to his room or if he thinks he should stay in medical for another night.”

“Let’s get to it, then,” Tony declared, putting on his brave face. 

When Ned and MJ were both gone, Peter relaxed against his bed and closed his eyes. He only had maybe two minutes of alone time, though, before Loki came in. “I was told to keep you company,” he said. Peter hummed in response, leaving his eyes closed. “You’re looking more alive.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“It wasn’t so much of a compliment as it was an observation. You still look sick. I see why Stark does not wish for you to be alone.”

“Maybe I want to be. Wait, no, I’m sorry, that came out meaner than I intended it.”

“You’re forgiven,” Loki said. He didn’t walk further into the room to take a seat. He didn’t lean against the wall. He just took there, straight up, with his hands behind his back. He wasn’t moving, and Peter could sense it. It made him anxious, but not excessively. If it was anybody else, he would have been freaking out. Loki was often that presence that made everybody else awkward and uncomfortable. It was natural.

Peter had dozed before Loki spoke again, and when he did, Peter jumped awake. He could tell it had only been a handful of seconds. “Stark is worried.”

“He’s always worried, but I kind of see why he is right now,” Peter said, eyes opened and now properly sitting up. He didn’t want to be scared awake again.

“I understand that, but this is different. I do not know what has caused his extra worry, but I do know that he was more worried than I had seen him since we were unsure of whether or not you would pull through.”

“You think Bruce found something else?”

“Last I was aware, Banner has yet to make an appearance. The common belief is that he is doing more research in his lab or sleeping, so no, I do not believe he has found anything else.”

“Was he, like…really obviously worried, or were you able to tell because you’re a god and all?”

“It was fairly evident.”

Whatever was worrying Tony must had been bad, Peter knew, because Tony didn’t like to show his worry. He was probably tired of looking so worried now that they knew Peter was okay. He expected Tony to go back to nonchalance when he was around anyone who wasn’t Peter or Pepper as if he was brushing it off, but he was outwardly worried in front of Loki, of all people. He pulled out his phone and sent Tony a text asking if he was okay.

“Now you seem worried,” Loki said. “Is this worry over Stark?”

“Yeah,” Peter admitted. “My dad gets worried a lot, but he does his best to make sure nobody sees it if it isn’t dire.”

Loki gave a “hm” in response and finally properly entered the room. He took a seat, crossing his legs and sitting back. He crossed his fingers over his knee, tilting his head in Peter’s direction. “Well, the worry must be about you, mustn’t it?”

“I would think so.”

“If health wise you are doing much better, what do you believe is drawing his worry?”

Peter shrugged just as his phone buzzed. Tony had texted back.

**Tony:** I’m doing better now that you’re doing better, kiddo. Is everything okay?

**Peter:** Loki said u were worried so now im worried

**Tony:** Nope

**Tony:** My job to be worried about you. Not the other way around

**Tony:** It was a long couple of days. I’m gonna be worried

“Why are you crying?”

Peter looked up from his phone and looked at Loki. He took a few seconds to calm himself before he opened his mouth up to speak, but before words could come out, he started sobbing. He let go of his phone and heard it hit the floor. He pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them with his hands covering his head. He cried and cried, not really knowing why. There were so many reasons to cry that he couldn’t pick just _one_.

There was an arm around him and he knew it was Loki. Nobody else was around so it had to be him, though comfort was very unLokilike. Still, he let himself fall into the physical comfort and cry with someone he felt safe with (he felt safe with so many people. He was selfish for always wanting more, but he was grateful, too. He didn’t deserve the Avengers (Loki was an Avenger in Peter’s heart)).

“What the hell happened?”

It was Tony. He probably ran down there. The elevator would have been too slow. Tony panics quickly.

“I have no idea,” Loki said. He moved away, letting Tony take his place. “He was on his phone and then started crying. I asked him why and he began crying more.”

Honestly, it was more like a panic attack. There was definitely some panic, some hyperventilating, and the stupid machine he was hooked up to was beeping. Maybe that’s what brought Tony down.

“What is it?” Bruce was in the room now, probably having got the same alert or heard the beeping.

“Hey, Petey, let’s figure this out, huh?” Tony was sitting on the bed beside him. He had his hands on Peter’s hands and pulled them away from his head. His tone suggested he already had it figured out. Peter has had plenty of panic attacks around Tony that Tony probably had the symptoms memorized and could recognize a panic attack for a panic attack rather then assuming it was his health. “You’re okay, right? You made it through the bad. You’re safe now. We were even gonna talk to Brucey here about getting you up in your room tonight. I know I wasn’t for it before, but I think you’ll be okay in your room, don’t you?” While he was talking, Tony had been running his fingers through Peter’s hair and keeping his voice at a whisper. 

Bruce picked up by that point what was going on. “If Tony and Pepper are okay with you moving to your room, I don’t see a problem with it,” he said. “If you’ll be calmer there, I can sign off on it.”

“I just want this to be _over_,” Peter said, brokenly.

“Soon,” Tony said. “Soon, it will be over. Tomorrow is a new day.”

Peter shook his head, but he didn’t say anything else. He just focused on breathing.

Tony didn’t agree to letting Peter stand on his own, but Bruce also said Peter probably didn’t need to be carried or left on a stretcher to get there, so Tony let Peter walk, but only if someone was supporting him. Which meant Tony was supporting him. Loki excused himself as they were getting ready to take the elevator up to the main floor so they could get to Peter’s room. Bruce did bring the vital signs machine with them so that Peter could be hooked up in his room. “He can probably be left alone,” Bruce said quietly to Tony, but Peter still heard. “I don’t think you’ll leave him alone, but know that he’ll be fine if you did.” Peter didn’t ask to be left alone, so Tony didn’t address it.

Pepper was sitting in Peter’s room, evidently awaiting their arrival. She stood up when Bruce, Tony, and Peter came in. She took note of the sadness on Peter’s face but said nothing. Instead, she smiled. “Hey, honey. I brought you a snack in case you were hungry.”

“Thanks,” Peter said with a smile once he was sitting down. He refused to admit how tired he was from the _very_ small journey. He had to take a couple deep breaths. “I am kinda hungry.”

“So you’re starving,” Tony amended.

“Kind of,” Peter admitted, and everybody laughed.

“I didn’t bring ‘starving’ food, but maybe this will hold you over for the meantime,” she said, gesturing to the sandwich and apple sitting on a plate on the middle of his bed. She sat back down beside him and he immediately put his head on her shoulder. He was tired. Tired of everything, really, and actually very deeply exhausted. He wanted to sleep for a week, but he didn’t think a week was long enough to allow him to feel well-rested again.

Bruce got Peter hooked back up to the monitor and gave Friday strict warnings and when to contact him before he left, leaving the family alone. “We need a TV down there,” Peter said after he turned the TV on.

“You watch TV too much,” Tony said, though he didn’t really mean it. He had gotten comfy in Peter’s bed, kicking his legs out and everything. “I’ll ask you this one last _unprompted_ time for the night, okay? How are you feeling?”

If Tony hadn’t prompted that question with the fact that he wasn’t going to ask it again, Peter might have actually burst into tears again. “My head hurts, but nothing too bad. I’m mostly just tired. I feel like I slept the entire day away.”

“You did,” Pepper said. She was also laying in bed, taking up the space in between Tony and Peter. “Nothing wrong with that, though.”

“No, but it feels pointless if I’m still tired.”

“Our bodies heal by resting,” Tony said. “You know that.”

“Yeah, but I’m still annoyed by it. Ever watch Bojack Horseman?”

“We are not watching Bojack Horseman. Pick something else.”

Pepper, who normally liked to argue with Tony, agreed. “Maybe something else for tonight.”

Peter rolled his eyes, but not maliciously. “Okay, but all my other choices are for kids. I’m putting on Boss Baby: Back in Business.” It was probably a better choice than Bojack Horseman, anyways. That show would depress him out. Boss Baby was definitely for people younger than 16, but it was enjoyable and easy entertainment. It was distracting and innocent.

“There’s a movie about me?” Tony asked.

The joke almost missed Peter, but then he laughed, and the more he laughed, the better he felt. He had to remind himself that laughter truly was the best medicine. 


End file.
